General advice to new scuba divers: do not waste your money!

[chillyinCanada]

Not this shop. They would just push ScubaPro over everything else. Honesty was not in their business model. I believe they also used the “life support equipment” line as well.

I looked at both. While I didn’t hate the Knighthawk, I preferred the Stiletto. Still do. My buddy just switched to a Stiletto from a Knighthawk, and immediately preferred it. When a customer asks to look at a specific model, you show them what they asked for. My Stiletto has held up well. If I were to buy again, and choose between Stiletto and Knighthawk, I’d make the same choice.

Sounds like a rock and a hard place for that salesperson.

If in the fullness of time, you'd come to prefer the Knighthawk and not the Stiletto, you'd have blamed the salesperson if he/she hadn't tried to convince you that it was a better purchase.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I don’t doubt it. I guess my point is that how my regs breathe has never bothered me.

When I’m at 40m I’m not thinking “man this reg isn’t breathing well”, I’m thinking “look at the pretty fishies!”

There's no pretty fishes where Marie13 dives.

 

[Belzelbub]

Similarly, I will probably never buy a Mercedes or BMW, because I just don't see the marginal utility they would provide. Although if I did win the lottery, I might be transporting my mufti-color computer to the dive site in a Mercedes.

I’ve owned a couple Mercedes over the years. Not top of the line, but well equipped. Pricing was more than a Kia, but not ridiculous. The reason it’s been more than one is due to what happened with the 1st Mercedes we owned.

I took it in to the dealer for a CEL. Car was well out of warranty at the time. Over the mileage by a good amount, and over a year out as well. It took the dealer a couple of tries to pinpoint the cause, but they finally settled on a harmonic balancer causing the issue. The problem was getting at it. In order to repair, the engine needed to come out. The dealer showed me the estimate. It was north of $10K to repair. Quite a bit for a car that was purchased for less than $40K. The cost to me for that repair turned out to be $0. Mercedes covered everything despite the warranty status.

To draw it back to the Scuba world, there are some companies that have a reputation of taking care of their customers, and there are others that have the opposite. I’ll gladly spend a little more to buy a product from the former.

 

[Belzelbub]

If in the fullness of time, you'd come to prefer the Knighthawk and not the Stiletto, you'd have blamed the salesperson if he/she hadn't tried to convince you that it was a better purchase.

Nope. If I went in there not needing any advice on what I was going to buy, then I’d only blame myself. I didn’t ask the salesperson to show me a BC. I specifically asked about a particular BC, maybe 2, as I think I was inquiring about the Ranger vs. Stiletto. This wasn’t the only time they tried to steer me to ScubaPro when I asked about something completely different. It was, however, the last time. I had previously done some training with that shop, and had purchased gear from them in the past.

Instead, another shop got my business for my gear, and that of my daughters. The first shop couldn’t have known that I would end up being a good customer, but neither did the shop that got my business.

 

[lowwall]

I took it in to the dealer for a CEL. Car was well out of warranty at the time. Over the mileage by a good amount, and over a year out as well. It took the dealer a couple of tries to pinpoint the cause, but they finally settled on a harmonic balancer causing the issue. The problem was getting at it. In order to repair, the engine needed to come out. The dealer showed me the estimate. It was north of $10K to repair. Quite a bit for a car that was purchased for less than $40K. The cost to me for that repair turned out to be $0. Mercedes covered everything despite the warranty status.

To draw it back to the Scuba world, there are some companies that have a reputation of taking care of their customers, and there are others that have the opposite. I’ll gladly spend a little more to buy a product from the former.

I'd rather have the car that was designed so the failure of a $60 part doesn't result in a $10k service.

Anyway, cars to regulators analogies don't really work. All regs are within a much narrower performance envelope than cars and there is relatively very little room for differentiation or innovation. Even serviceability is basically the same, except some manufacturers try to make you buy branded tools for their proprietary hardware or jump through hoops to get parts.

 

[johndiver999]

I doubt there are many divers who dive bpw with stiff and long fiberglass fins!

That configuration would not be at all unusual for serious spearfisherman. A large majority that I see use the freedive fins,

 

[travisfull]

Guys, I understand all your different pov, but what really does not make any sense is a statement like “well, your advices are based on the need of pushing this or that interest as much as your local dive shop”.

It is totally wrong; in my original post I voluntarily did not write any specific brand (except for garmin) because its not a matter of brand.
I had my fair share amount of money wasted in equipment did not served me well over the long term because of bad or self interest advices. Does it mean my local dealer is bad? No! Its business!
Today we all have many more possibilities to find proper equipment with decent price and can serve us all over a long term period of time, even in the unlikely possibility of a transition toward tech or sidemount diving.

 

[SlugLife]

“well, your advices are based on the need of pushing this or that interest as much as your local dive shop”.

I don't think anyone is accusing you of being a dive-shop salesman. However, some people are pointing out that new divers are venerable to those dive-shop salesmen types.

I had my fair share amount of money wasted in equipment did not served me well over the long term because of bad or self interest advices. Does it mean my local dealer is bad? No! Its business!

A dive-shop who sells their customers products they don't need, effectively wasting their customer's money, and treats it as "it's just business" is the perfect example of why one should NOT simply trust local dive-shops. Perhaps it's not illegal or outright-immoral, but one should understand these local-dive shops offering advice may not really be looking out for your best interests as a diver.

That's why you should understand and treat these shops as if they view you as little more than a disposable customer, until that dive-shop proves otherwise.

 

[travisfull]

I

I don't think anyone is accusing you of being a dive-shop salesman. However, some people are pointing out that new divers are venerable to those dive-shop salesmen types.

A dive-shop who sells their customers products they don't need, effectively wasting their customer's money, and treats it as "it's just business" is the perfect example of why one should NOT simply trust local dive-shops. Perhaps it's not illegal or outright-immoral, but one should understand these local-dive shops offering advice may not really be looking out for your best interests as a diver.

That's why you should understand and treat these shops as if they view you as little more than a disposable customer, until that dive-shop proves otherwise.

I totally agree on that, this is whay I wanted to give just simple advices to new fellow divers who are now starting to look around for new gear.
Dont blindly trust your local dive shop, its business like if you were looking for a pair of running shoes…today though we have other tools to understand better what we buy before spending money on stuff that won’t serve us well over the long term.

 

[happy-diver]

It was amazingly breathtaking times to collect over a period your second hand tank and regs
and any tank and regs you could find and you already had all the other stuff from snorkelling
when going deeper for longer was about the dive, and about you, grab an extra tank and go

And what do we have now, now we have a collection of people spoilt for choice with no clue

The parents don't teach their children how to change a spark plug in a lawn mower any more